The route will be starting from Vladivostok, riding the road around to Sovetskaya Gavan via Komsomolsk or possibly jumping on the train with the bikes (depends on time and availability). Sovetskaya Gavan is last stop on the eastern coast of the BAM railway and just past Vanino where we will stay.

From Komsomolsk we will ride to Vanino and Sovetskaya Gavan along the graded road, after which the real journey begins! Reading through Walter Colebatch’s 2009 blog and talking to him it looks as if no service road exists from the town north of Vanino called Mongokhto.

Our plan is to ride to Mongokhto and see if we can find the track and continue if possible, if not we will double back to Komsomolsk via the graded road and attempt the BAM to Tynda from there. Time permitting we will carry on and ride the western BAM then either ship the bikes back to St Petersburg or ride home ( this may involve splitting up as some would like to ride the horrendous roads home and some not ).

There’s not much information on the eastern BAM with only a few people attempting it, we did meet a biker in Tynda called Max that has apparently rode it on a 250 with some sections having to be done along the railway tracks. Walter Colebatch, Tony P, and Terry rode from Komsomolsk to Isa in 2009 but had to call it a day due to mechanically issues and road conditions.http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=533442

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14 thoughts on “2014 Trip”

Mark and Kev. I am planning to buy a BMW F650 GS in Ireland in April 2014 and point it east. I plan to spend July/August in Mongolia, then head north to the BAM road. Ultimately I want to be in Vladivostok by Oct 15, ferry to S Korea, then ship the bike to a USA port.
I am looking for travelling companion(s). I speak good German, English, and Spanish. I am learning Russian. I use BMW because I have the tools and know how to fix them (kind of – mostly).
Fritz

Hi Fritz,
Kev lives in Dublin, maybe when you are over there you can meet up with him to chat about your trip. We will be around in August so if you are there you can tag along for some of the ride. Check Walter Colebatch writeups on the GS, it’s a good bike but I seem to remember somewhere that the rims are a little soft and can buckle and dent easy.
Mark

Hi Fritz,
As mark said I live in Ireland and if I can help with buying a bike or somewhere to stay when your here let me know?
Would be nice to catch up for a chat at least.
Good luck and look forward to hearing from you.
Kev

Hi Fritz,
We are going to ship 4 or 5 bikes from the UK to Vladivostok around middle of May so that they are available middle of July.
We are then spending 4 – 6 weeks in eastern Russia, not going into Mongolia for 2014. Then shipping bikes back via Vladivostok.
It’s going to be a 20′ container so space is available for extra bikes but they will have to be in UK.

Thanks a lot for the webinar on personal security and self defence last night.
Myself and Ned really appreciated it and our wives feel a lot happier now that they know we will have someone like you leading the group

So what are the plans and dates? I want to see how the eastern bam treats bikes of the motor variety. I can think of a few very rough patches… a few every hour.

I don’t know what you will do when you get to the northern arm of the Zeya reservoir. I rode along the railway line for about 12km or so and then pushed through the forest to the very overgrown road. I don’t know if that is really an option on a motorbike. I don’t think there would be any boats around either and I don’t know if the original road is still recognisable on the other side of the reservoir crossing.

Hi Luke,
We followed your blog last year, great reading!
Plan is to be in Vladivostok for mid July and push out straight away.
Will be an interesting trip, we will just take it one day at a time and see how far we get.